The Dudley Corporation – Four More Years

With Year Of The Husband finally nearing its July 4th release date, Aoife Barry tries to find out just what exactly took them so long…

Bands come and go – some appear on the scene in a blaze of light and disappear fast, burning out quickly. Others scramble to make a name for themselves and never quite get there, so slink off before anyone notices their failures. Other bands do things at their own pace, make their own name, are loved when they’re around, and missed when they’re not. People wait (im)patiently for their next release, remember fondly their last gig, and gently rib the band members when they bump into them: "When’re you gonna get that album out, ya eejit?" The Dudley Corporation are one of those bands.

The trio of close friends who make up the Corpo (as they’re known to fans) are Dudley, Joss and Mark. They’ve been making music for a long time together, played great gigs and memorable-for-the-wrong-reasons gigs together – so it perhaps it’s not quite surprising to hear that they all got married around the same time too (although, I must note, not to each other). And it was those three weddings that inspired the name of the band’s latest album, the just released ‘Year of the Husband’. Interestingly, it follows the critically lauded ‘In Love With the Dudley Coporation’ – it’s like the boys have grown up, and they’re now men. And perhaps the fans, too, are now wedded to the band after all these years, if we want to stretch the metaphor even further.

The album’s been four years in the making, which is something that wasn’t quite planned by the band. "I believe it’s what real bands do!" laughs Dudley when talking about the making of ‘Husband’. Initially, the members did intend to spend longer making their third album than they had with the previous two, and for good reason. "It started off as a conscious thing," explains Dudley. "The first album was done and mixed in four days – the second album was done and mixed in five days. We really didn’t want to do it again." Finishing the second album, they worked with Rob Bochnik (Smog, The Frames) and Dudley even took a trip to Chicago to mix the record, which turned out to once more not go quite to plan.